Locating a speaker when its playing a surround mix is different to a pink noise though. During a surround mix multiple speakers are playing to virtualize a point of sound, , it is alot harder to find the location of the speaker, if well calibrated and your sitting position is optimized you shouldn't be able to tell which speaker is playing what unless it is pure left or pure right etc.

In an Auro3d setup with 7 bed layer speakers and 4 heights where should the back heights be placed? Above the side surrounds, above the back surrounds or somewhere between?

6 heights would be nice

The sound that you hear from rain is from the ground, most likely hear the sound from the bed layer , and reflection from height speakers.

In a lot of cases with movie soundtracks, I’ve heard that 4 heights can work better than 6 heights. With 6 heights on many soundtracks the height effects get pushed to the middle height speakers. I have not tested this myself, but if this is accurate it doesn’t make sense to me.

Should the front heights be directly above the front bed layers and the rear heights directly above the bed layer rears in a 7.1.4? I was wondering if it would be better to put them in the 4 corners of the room or not. Note - the heights can be towed in and tilted down with the brackets they're on.

I've seen multiple people with living room home theatre set ups asking about an Atmos set-up with the main seating near a rear wall , no one's ever mentioned the surround height setting on Denon receivers,has anyone tried it and set up correctly it should give phantom rear base level and height level, same as your fronts do

I am using STR AZ7000 with calibration IX. I agree and have front height high on the wall, yet due to Dolby angles they are just a bit wider than the 65 A95L. Rears are wireless RS5S on stands just above head level. Logic is less wires, and using the bouncy house speakers the weakest of the Dolby techniques behind the head since the listening position is close to the back wall like techno dad. However I rent an apartment so I can not cut 8 inch holes in the ceiling. My middle height SS-CSE are on the wall near the ceiling just in front of the listening position. I have a nice desperation between all the speakers for this small listening space. The entire system is Sony to keep the tone right. Bedlayer is actually 6 as I use the acoustic center lift on the TV. RS6S use multiple speakers aimed in different directions. Fronts are as wide as possible so inline with top middle and rear surrounds Ideally right before watching a movie I should move the couch forward one foot. I agree with Joe n tells logic, that sound moving front to rear along the wall make sense to me, since that is what I have. I like that you guys are using scientific discovery to learn what is best kinda like myth busters.

For on walls, Front, front height, rear height, and rear surrounds should be positioned as if it was a line array arcing over your head, so that the dispersion and reflection characteristics are similar. Not facing inward from the sides. IMO. If you’re ceiling height doesn’t have the distance matching your front speakers then I would move them inward until you have the same degree of separation for stereo imaging.

I have a 5 bed layer with 4 over head. I sit close to back wall, it is what it is. My front heights are in line with front L/R and my top middle height are inside the front heights slightly. I set it that way for your left to right pans from front to back or back to front…..kind of like drawing an arch from front right to left back. Seems to work well but I’m just a dude who over thought placement maybe. Sounds good to me and speakers look like they are in a good place so all is good

This is another reason to have the couch away from the back wall. As well as the improved perception of bass and of course, the upgraded surround sound experience. Having the couch off the back wall by at least a couple of feet may actually help the surrounds, and the rear height speakers disappear. Ok, maybe not the Dynamics, but those ambient sounds can sometimes sound as if there's a whole wall of sound coming from behind me. Btw my room's only 13 x 11.5 ft.

I put my Top-Middles on the same line as my Front and Rear Heights. Of course, I'm using bookshelf speakers, not in-ceiling. But I have them mounted on the ceiling, directly above their corresponding speakers.

Spot on chana! Totally agreeed

Doesn't Atmos ignore side surround "heights" designation from AVR? So you have to designate them as top middle if you want them to fire...

I think speaker placements has a lot to with the room, What is the standard size room ? It may be my hearing but speakers placed on the front wall or rear wall just gives both front and backstage a bigger sound and doesn't cover overhead, What I do is place my heights in a box around my MLP but inside of my baselayer

Any thoughts on Tannoy VX8 concentric speaks for all channels in a home theater?

The sony 7000avr asks for lots of mesurements of height, distance from screen, distance from mlp, etc, and from two different mic angles so if you have speakers out of position it can try to accomodate. There is also a setting for movie and music that tries to "place" speakers more ideally. Also there is the 360 Sound Spatial Mapping that works to help if speakers are out of place. They all work good for me.

Yo fellas😊

Technodad, I Disagree slightly.